Today Flight Centre are having their massive Flight Expo so I thought it would be good to pop along to see what flight deals I can score. Up until now which is February 2016, I have been living with my parents for nearly a month. It has definitely had its moments but we haven’t killed each other yet which is a bonus I suppose. So Mum and I head off to the Expo. I have been looking at doing a tour through Italy as I would love to see some of Europe before heading to England. The thought of going there on my own, not knowing the language or just being in a foreign country altogether terrifies me. I have been looking at the Trafalgar Cost Saver tours as they are good for when you’re on a budget (which I certainly am!). I will also get to meet more people too rather than being on my own most of the time.

So here we are at the Expo looking around. It’s being held at a convention centre and has loads of stalls. Everything to do with travel is there. Cruises, tours, travel products etc. We walk around and find a Trafalgar Tour stall. I have a chat to the guy who says “You will love Italy! This tour is fantastic you will get to see so much”. Reading up on it before arriving I knew it looked like a really good tour. Hotel accomodation, seeing all of the main sites, staying in Rome, Florence and Venice. I speak to him for a bit and he advises he can give me a 7.5% discount as it’s an Expo promo. Score! We then head off to the queue line to book flight tickets. After an hour of waiting I am finally sitting with a travel agent. She’s the manager of our local store. I’m getting pretty excited at this point. I explain to her that I want to go for about 6 weeks and start off in Italy. We chat about my options and the tour and I get it all signed up. The end result being I will start the tour in Rome and fly home from Paris.

I get home and look at my documents. Uh oh!! I calculate the weeks of the dates booked and its 7 weeks! What happened was that I chose a tour date (from their catalogue) but it wasn’t a guaranteed departure. If there weren’t enough people for that date on the tour they cancel it so my travel agent put me on the previous one which was guaranteed departure. She didn’t however change my fly out date..

Sitting  and going through all this without a calendar made it pretty difficult to realise the error until I had got home. Thinking about it though I thought bugger it! Its only an extra week it won’t hurt. Plus work have 10 months notice anyway.

The following Monday when I get back to work I give my flight dates to my boss. She looks at it and says “wait a minute, you’ll be gone for 7 weeks? You said it would only be 6?”. I explained what happened and that I didn’t realise the trip was pushed out another week. She tells me she has to get approval from the directors in order for my leave to be approved. As I had already booked the tickets I was going anyway and did think it was odd she didn’t get approval when I first mentioned the trip to her back in Novemeber.

Later in the week I go back to the Flight Centre to pay for the rest of the flight. At the expo I had only put down a deposit to secure my place on the tour. Thank goodness for credit cards! I also get signed up for travel insurance and some Captains Club? Apparently this gives me a discount on accomodation and I get a free gift! Woohoo haha. The free gift by the way is a travel adapater (the use of this I will mention later on in another blog..). I get all of my paperwork and then head home where I start to research by butt off!